Consistent with the principles of open-source science, data resulting from SMD-funded scientific activities shall be made publicly available through methods that are transparent, inclusive, accessible, and reproducible. This section provides guidance to support the implementation of requirements for data management and sharing established by SPD-41a. Researchers also should reference any relevant data policies and guidance provided by SMD divisions, which include more specific information on topics such as data repositories, metadata requirements, and recommended data formats.
Data are defined as scientific or technically relevant information that can be stored digitally and accessed electronically. This includes any scientifically useful data associated with an award. In particular, the information needed to validate the scientific conclusions of peer-reviewed publications must be shared at the time of publication. This does not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary analyses, intermediate data products, drafts of scientific papers, plans for future research, peer review reports, communications with colleagues, or physical objects, such as laboratory specimens.
Data subject to specific laws, regulations, or policies (e.g., Export Administration Regulations (EAR) or International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)) that would prevent the release of this information are exempt from requirements for making data publicly available. Section II-C of SPD-41a lists additional laws, regulations, and policies that generate exceptions to data sharing requirements.
All SMD-funded scientific activities that are expected to produce scientific data shall include data management plan describing the management, preservation, and release of data to facilitate implementation of relevant scientific information policies. The data management plan may be one component of a broader OSDMP. Though not required under SPD-41A, the OSDMP is a required component of many proposals for SMD funding starting with ROSES-2023.
At a minimum, a data management plan for SMD-funded research should include:
- Descriptions of the data expected to be produced from the proposed activities, including types of data to be produced, the approximate amount of each data type expected, the machine-readable format of the data, data file format, and any applicable standards for the data or associated metadata
- The repository (or repositories) that will be used to archive data and metadata arising from the activities and the schedule for making data publicly available
- Description of data types that are subject to relevant laws, regulations, or policies that exclude them from data sharing requirements
- Roles and responsibilities of project personnel who will ensure implementation of the data management plan
Data management plans should reflect the practices of specific research communities, and SMD Divisions and/or ROSES program elements may provide additional guidance on format and content. See SMD Division Policies and Guidance.
Scientific data resulting from SMD-funded scientific activities shall be made publicly available, to the extent allowed by applicable law and existing NASA policies, according to the following timeline:
- Scientific data needed to validate the scientific conclusions of peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from SMD-funded scientific activities shall become publicly available no later than the publication date of the corresponding peer-reviewed article. This includes data required to derive the findings communicated in figures, maps, and tables, as well as scientifically useful data from models and simulations.
- Any scientifically useful data associated with a SMD research award shall be made publicly available by the end of the period of performance, whether or not the data would be needed to validate the scientific conclusions of a peer-reviewed publication.
Data must be shared and archived in locations that ensure the accessibility and preservation of the data. Repositories should meet the guidelines for SMD-acceptable data repositories in Appendix D of SPD-41a, which are based upon the Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research. The method for sharing the data must be described as part of the data management plan.
SMD-funded researchers should follow any guidance for how to share data provided in their solicitation or in SMD division policies. Examples of these repositories include GeneLab, NExScI Science Data Archives, and HLSP Data Collections. If no repository is specified by the funding solicitation or SMD division, researchers are encouraged to select an appropriate NASA Science Data Archive whenever possible.
While SMD encourages the use of domain-specific data repositories when possible, such repositories are not available for all data sets. In this case, researchers may select a generalist data repository that is already in use by the scientific community and follows the characteristics of acceptable data repositories in Appendix D of SPD-41a. Generalist repositories include data.nasa.gov, as well as others provided by other federal agencies and by nongovernmental institutions.
SMD does not recommend any specific generalist repositories at this time. Following the examples of the NIH and USGS, the non-exhaustive list below is provided as a starting point for locating commonly used generalist repositories that may be suitable for archiving SMD-funded research data.
The USGS provides a helpful list of criteria to consider when selecting an external repository.
For some scientific data, such as small data sets or individual tables that accompany a journal article, the supplemental material of a published journal article may be an appropriate location for making the data accessible. To be compliant with data sharing requirements in SPD-41a, the journal must not restrict usage or require a fee to access the supplemental material, and any data provided as supplemental material must be machine readable. While sharing data as supplemental material may be appropriate in some cases, SMD encourages archiving data in community-recognized data repositories as a best practice. In some cases, this is done automatically by the journal and community repositories as part of the publication process.
When sharing data, researchers should follow the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. The FAIR Principles include ensuring that data are:
- Findable - consistent and persistent descriptions make scientific data easy to find by both humans and computers
- Accessible - use of standard, open protocols ensure data and metadata can be accessed by all.
- Interoperable - formal, accessible, and widely adopted semantics and vocabularies are used to expand data usability across systems and communities
- Reusable - data are richly described according to standards to ensure they can be combined or replicated, and usage rights are clarified
The following items are consistent with the FAIR Guiding Principles and are intended to help ensure that data are preserved and accessible to support reproducibility and reuse. These items are required (denoted using “shall”) or recommended (denoted using “should”) when publicly sharing research data developed using SMD funding.
- Open accessibility: Publicly available, SMD-funded data shall be made available without fee or restriction of use. The data shall be shared in a repository that provides broad, equitable, and maximally open access to datasets and their metadata free of charge in a timely manner after submission, consistent with legal and policy requirements related to maintaining privacy and confidentiality, Tribal and national data sovereignty, and protection of sensitive data. The data will be accessible to the public (lay and scientific) without pre-approval.
- Format: SMD-funded data and metadata shall be made available for access, download, or export in non-proprietary, modifiable, open, and machine-readable formats consistent with standards used in the disciplines the repository serves.
- Inclusion of metadata: SMD-funded data shall include robust, standards-compliant metadata that clearly and explicitly describe the data. Inclusion of metadata by the repository enables discovery, reuse, and citation of SMD-funded data.
- Clear guidance on use: Publicly available SMD-funded data shall be reusable with a clear, open, and accessible data license. If there are no other restrictions on the data, the data should be released with a Creative Commons Zero License. This provides a clear license for the user that the scientific data is in the worldwide public domain and that they may use it freely. In some cases, there might be existing restrictions on releasing the data due to intellectual property rights, contract restrictions, underlying licenses, or other issues. If unsure, contact your counsel that can help with intellectual property rights or ask for clarifications at HQ-SMD-SPD41@mail.nasa.gov.
- Persistent identifiers: Publicly available SMD-funded data collections shall be citable using unique persistent identifiers (e.g., DOI) assigned by the repository to support data discovery, reporting, and research assessment. Authors of publications developed using publicly available, SMD-funded data should cite the data sources used to conduct the research. This may include data made publicly available by the author of the publication using methods described in this section or other SMD-funded data.
- Findability: SMD-funded data shall be findable, such that the data can be retrieved, downloaded, indexed, and searched. The data must be shared in a repository that will ensure that data are searchable and be provided with descriptive metadata along with the data collections.